An adoptee’s journey

“An invisible red thread connects those who are destined to meet, regardless of time, place, or circumstance. The thread may stretch or tangled, but will never break.” –An ancient Chinese belief”

As you know last weeks post was initiated by a trip down memory lane while transferring over some old VHS tapes. Prior to that I had been giving thought to blogging about adoption in general, my adoption and the adoption triad as I know it. (The triad is a triangular symbol for the birth parent, adoptee and adoptive parents.) Because of what can be an incredibly sensitive topic I have deviated from it in the past as far putting it into a public forum if you will. However I have decided to go ahead and continue to share my experience and my perspective on things. In part this decision came of the email responses I had to my initial post and I want to continue to offer a place of support.

I went in search of photos as well in an album I was given when I met my bio family and found this picture of my bio mom and thought I’d share. I have no idea how old she is here but just thought I’d do the comparison again. 🙂 My picture is the one in the bottom corner. Never thought I’d see the day I’d slap my baby photo on the internet! OK maybe I see the resemblance because I want to??

My journey started when I was quite young and I don’t recall when I was told I was adopted; it was just something I’ve always known, so clearly, I must have been told at a young age. I do know though that I always had a “want” to always know where I came from and to know who my biological family was. I felt a void of something and I think it was an automatic response to put it onto not knowing who I was. Many think those feeling arise when you are raised in a way “less than” you would have hoped for. Sure that certainly adds fuel to your desire to search but there are many reasons to want to know. Lets begin with finding ones roots and how that will relieve or unfortunately even confirm the misconceptions and/or myths we had that affect our lives. To follow those roots for me and to know where my heritage began was a very cathartic journey and I continue to embrace that heritage and research it. Along the way, I was incredibly fortunate to meet a woman who is a distant cousin and she has done an enormous amount of research on my biological mother’s side and complied a book from it. Her knowledge and dedication are truly one of the greatest gifts I could ever get on this journey.

I strive to be the best me I can be and heard a quote that rang true…”How can you be the best version of you that you meant to be when you don’t know who you are?” I know there are many that don’t feel that way but for me it rings true.

Of course another huge component of knowing your lineage is for medical background. When I started to really dig deeper into my family medical background not only did it enlighten me on so much, and provide me with what I needed for my physician, but it also validated so much for me and things made sense…those hereditary things that I never had answers to. All those years of hearing “Is there any hereditary factors involved?” to which your response remains “I don’t know, I’m adopted”. I finally was able to say “Not that I know of “here” is what I was told” or “Yes there is”. Having said that there were diagnosis/outcomes that I later found to not be tue at all. IE: I had a sister who had meningitis….not true. Out of so many things that are involved in adoption, to me being versed on my family medical history is by far one of the most important factors I think everyone should know and is entitled to….the truth about their lineage and medical info.

When we go on these searches for “family” they take us down a path that we know is possible but hope will not come to fruition: These storybook reunions that we all want and are crushed when we don’t get them. In overcoming many of those set backs and emotional hurdles along the way I have to say that I am grateful for so much and particularly that I am no longer “that” little secret no one knows about. There are still many secrets in my biological family, one in huge in particular, but it’s no longer me.

If you are part of the adoption triad I encourage you to read a book by Ben Wicks called “Yesterday they took my baby”. It is all true stories and comes from the perspective of a birth parent, adoptive parents and the adoptee”. I read a personal review somewhere and they stated “The stories are told in a somewhat disjointed manner” which I agree to in part. Keep in mind it comes from an emotional place of those whose words are being shared and I think you will find much of yourself in this book. There are others that along the way I’ll suggest as well.

My combined familys; some faces have been blurred.

I trust that in your reading this blog you will remember this comes from my story and my point of view and that I hope you can find some solace along the way. I want this to be a safe forum where we can share our thoughts and not be judged. I know that’s a tall order with these topics being so controversial but as I said in my initial blog introduction to adoption…

“What I do know is that for those that may be directly effected by my blogging here, please remember my opinions are not right or wrong…they are my opinions, my views; my truths.”